First Scouting Mission
by IfCujoWereSappho
Summary: Oneshot. Eren and Mikasa deal with the aftermath of their first mission as Scouting Corps. Rated for reference to violence just to be safe, not much else rating worthy.


Their first mission with the Scout Corps had been brutal. No. Brutal was putting it gingerly. Part of Eren understood that he was moving, lying down, but moving. Some distant part of his consciousness understood this meant he was in a wagon, but somehow not because he was dead. He faded in and out, waxing and waning on the spectrum of alertness. Some part of him wished he were just out cold. With the moments of awareness were the sharp and heavy stabs of guilt that settled into him like knives he couldn't remove. At one point he even began to try counting the people he could have saved if only... and then cringed and pushed the thought away.

Mikasa's view shifted occasionally from Eren, to her legs or the floor of the wagon. The first time she believed him dead, she nearly let herself give up, and she hadn't even witnessed it. So when she watched the female titan rip Eren out of his titan form and swallow him, she would not let herself accept it. She would not lose him. As if in echo, she hears something from him, like a strangled cry and her grip on his hand tightens just slightly. He was all she had left, whatever everyone else called the two, he was her family.

Eren watched his squad die, over and over. Erd smashed on impact, Petra crushed in her bloody collision, even the furious Oruo doesn't come back. Eren was supposed to believe in his squad. Now none are alive to believe in. There's nothing he can do anymore, it's like falling. He's falling, falling from the trees and he too is going to crash. He cries out and suddenly feels a gentle squeeze around his hand. Somehow, he knows Mikasa is there. She's always there. They're watching the Scout Corps return, battered, from their latest mission. Missing many people and someone in the crowd is complaining that their taxes are being wasted on this. On sending these scouts out to their deaths, on feeding titans, and it makes Eren furious. Just a child, armed with a stick, furious, frozen. Frozen there for years, in rage, shaking. He hears Mikasa behind him, that voice, always chiding, always nearby.  
"Eren."  
He's shaking harder, and she says his name with more urgency.  
"_Eren_."  
He gasps as his eyes open wide, he's moving. Not Shaking, but moving. The wagon.  
Mikasa is leaning over him where he lays. "Eren?"  
He tries to sit up, ask what happened, about the female titan. She urges him not to move, says they failed capturing the titan and that he needs rest. Her cloak is draped over him.  
"This..." he notices it. "Did you rescue me again?"  
She clutches at her scarf, and instead of answering tells him that they'll be at the wall soon.  
So she did. Of course she did.  
"I'm not your..." he starts, but he looks at her face and instead murmurs: "Thanks."  
She gives him a small smile and brushes away hair that has blown in her face. 

Eren's eyes fix on the mark on her face and Jean's words, the accusations in the tribunal flash through his mind. Did he really attack her? She says he saved her on other accounts, but the fact that he hurt her makes him cringe. Visibly apparently, because he sees it reflected in her eyes.  
"What's wrong?" Within an instant of asking she's followed his gaze to her face and her eyes widen the smallest amount with worry. Now instinctively, she brushes her hair back over the mark on her face.  
"You didn't mean to, Eren. You didn't have control." She sounds so sure of this, but that's the only thing that makes the fact that he attacked her sting less. He's getting better at controlling his titan form, though nothing will make up for the fact that the first time he intentionally went into titan form, to help humanity at large, to prove he was on their side, he attacked the person who was always on his side.  
He raises his left hand, curling in three fingers, and hovers it over her cheek. "I..." Eren starts.  
"May I?" Mikasa's nods slightly, calm as always. Even about this, she's trying to protect him.  
His first finger touches the corner of her jaw and his thumb, very lightly, glides across the mark he left. He swallows and blinks, realizing his eyes are watering.  
"I'm sorry, Mikasa."  
He tries to sit again and she shakes her head gently. Instead, she takes his hand in her own and lies next to him. "I know, but I'm going to keep you safe," she says. "And I'm going to stay alive to do that."


End file.
